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114 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1999-2000)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry114 and id is 1 raw text is: Defining Moment: The Threat and Use of Force in American Foreign Policy BARRY M. BLECHMAN TAMARA COFMAN WITTES The use of military force has been a difficult subject for American leaders for three decades. Ever since the failure of American policy and mili- tary power in Vietnam, it has been hard for U.S. policy makers to gain domestic support for the use of force as an instrument of statecraft. U.S. military power has been exercised throughout this thirty-year period, but both threats of its use and the actual conduct of military operations have usually been controversial, turned to reluctantly, and marked by significant failures as well as successes. The American armed forces are large, superbly trained, fully prepared, and technologically advanced. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, U.S. forces are without question the most powerful by far on the face of the earth. Their competence, lethality, and global reach have been demonstrated time and again. Yet with rare exceptions, U.S. policy makers have found it difficult to achieve their objectives by threats alone. Often they have had to use force- even if only in limited ways-to add strength to the words of diplomats. And at more times than is desirable, the failures of threats and limited demonstrative uses of military power have confronted U.S. presidents with difficult choices between retreat and all-out military actions intended to achieve objectives by the force of arms alone. In the 1980s, most U.S. military leaders and many politicians and policy makers drew a strong conclusion from the failure of U.S. policy in Vietnam. BARRY M. BLECHMAN is the founder and president of DFI International and the cofounder and chairman of the Henry L. Stimson Center. This article was prepared initially for the National Academy of Sciences. TAMARA COFMAN WITTES is a university fellow and doctoral candidate in the De- partment of Government, Georgetown University. Her dissertation concerns techniques for ethnic conflict resolution. She also writes on coercive diplomacy and U.S. counterterrorism policy. Political Science Quarterly Volume 114 Number 1 1999 1

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